Perpetual Ruminations

A Vaccine? Already

Well, I was doing good at blogging in before midnight, but no such luck for tonight, it's currently 1:28 in the morning, my time. My youngest is still awake and just came and asked me for a Melatonin so she can get to sleep. She has a friend staying over for the night, so we let them stay up until midnight. But, once midnight came and my wife was ready for bed, she checked in on them and they were all settled in watching cartoons. She said to let them watch for a bit longer and we both figured they'd fall asleep. The friend did, I went in to check on them about 1:00 and my daughter was the only one awake. Now she's back in bed and hopefully will be sleeping soon.

Now, on to my blog post. My thoughts tonight, and for the last few days, is on the Covid Vaccine. It's amazing how fast they developed it and how fast they were able to get it tested and approved. I really don't have doubts about how well it will work or how safe it is although I hear a lot of people do have doubts.

But, if you think about it, most of the medications advertised on television have taken far longer to develop, test, and get approval, yet the side effects for them sound worse, in most cases, than the condition they treat. That's also the case for many medications we have taken for years. Growing up, if we were sick with a fever, we were given aspirin, the miracle drug that stopped fever and relieved most of the discomfort. By the time I had a child on the way, we had learned that there were serious problems from children taking aspirin. Instead, give them acetaminophen. Now, we find that this also has some serious problems if taken for too long and in too high of a dose.

Sure, there are risks with the vaccine and it's not going to work for everyone, but it's a good start. Soon enough there will be a few more choices to pick from, as well. Will it be worth the risk? I believe so. My reasoning is the severity of the virus as well as the severity of how much life has changed since it showed up. In my mind, I see it as a game of Russian Roulette with a few changes.

Now, I know the numbers aren't accurate but this is in my mind, remember? So with Covid, we have a revolver with twelve chambers and every third one is loaded. Every time we go shopping or anyplace there are people, we spin the cylinder and pull the trigger. With the vaccine, we have the same revolver, but only one chamber is filled. I like the second set of odds much better.

The only downfall I see is it will be spring or possibly even summer before it's available to people like me. But, even then we'll see a silver lining in the simple fact, a lot of other people will be getting vaccinated sooner and they will be the real test as to how well it works and how dangerous it is.